Forever and Always
by dragonflybeach
Summary: He promised Forever and Always. She was holding onto the splinters of their relationship. Drastoria/Druna


A/N - Written for the Taylor Swift Inspired Challenge on the HPFFC. Wanna take a wild guess which song I got?

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He didn't come home.

Again.

He didn't floo call or owl to tell her he was going to be late. He probably figured she expected it by this point.

Sadly, she did.

She prowled the huge empty bedroom like a caged tiger. It was getting late. She had already put Scorpius to bed, with a whispered "I know, precious, but Daddy will come in and kiss you when he comes home, even if you're already asleep."

A flash in the sky outside lit the room for a moment in a harsh light. Seconds later, the crash of the thunder followed. The rumbling died down, and the room was once again illuminated softly by the candles and sconces scattered about.

She sat on the foot of the bed and thumbed through an old Hogwarts yearbook, finding the picture of Draco with the Slytherin Quidditch team, the tallest even though he was only a fifth year and certainly the most elegant.

She slammed the book shut because she didn't want to see one of the pictures on the next page. Leaping to her feet, she continued her skulking about the room.

She paused by the fireplace, stroking her fingers over the picture from the first Ministry Ball they had attended together. She had worn the red dress her sister picked out, red to inflame a man's passion, and it had worked. Draco had hardly taken his eyes off her all night.

Not like this year, when she had gone outside with Daphne and Pansy for half an hour, and he hadn't even noticed.

Beside it was a photo from the day Scorpius was born. Draco had been so happy. He had flooed people from Hogwarts he hadn't seen in years to tell them he had a son. He had held her and told her that she was the most amazing woman in the world. She never would have believed everything would be so different five years later.

She selected a sterling silver frame from the center of the mantle, carrying it over to the window seat.

Their wedding portrait.

He had been the most handsome man she had ever seen in his formal robes. He looked into her eyes in front of everyone they knew and told her that he had loved her from the first moment he had laid eyes on her. He promised her forever and always and til death do us part.

Astoria sat the picture aside, and clenched her eyes shut, trying to hold back the tears.

Apparently Death's name was Luna Lovegood.

Luna had breezed back into Wizarding Society on a Saturday, not on a Tuesday, the boring day that Draco met Astoria.

Luna came with stories of exotic places and exotic beasts and wore clothes that would have been outlandish at muggle Mardi Gras.

She told Draco of a world beyond the Manor, beyond the rigid pureblood expectations, beyond the somber proprieties he had been molded into from birth.

Draco offered to invest in her work. Of course, that meant he had to meet with her. Appointments at the office became lunches away from the office and eventually after hours meetings at places Astoria wasn't privy to that lasted later and later.

But this was Draco, her forever and always and til death do them part, Draco who loved Scorpius more than anything, Draco who was raised to be honourable and respectable and decorous above all. He surely wouldn't betray his family, his wife, with a Bohemian blood traitor.

Astoria steadfastly believed that until the night Draco came home from meeting Luna about the budget for her next Crumple Horned Snorkack expedition and began to undress in front of his wife.

His expensive, starched, crisp white dress shirt slipped from his shoulders, leaving him in his woven silk undershirt. Right in the center of his back clung a pale blonde hair.

Astoria plucked it off, and Draco made a joke about putting it back on his head.

It hadn't come from his head.

It was eighteen inches long and curly.

Astoria spent nearly a month telling herself that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for how Luna Lovegood's hair came to be on Draco's undergarments.

She almost believed it.

Until the night, or should she say morning, as it was closer to dawn than sunset, that he came home, expecting to find his wife asleep, reeking of Luna Lovegood's perfume.

Astoria kept her eyes shut and her breathing even as best she could while he passed the bed on the way to the bathroom.

And when he came out, she still pretended to be asleep as he slid into bed beside her, smelling like his mother's special recipe of soap.

She had lain awake long after he fell asleep, plotting the confrontation in her mind. She would tell him that he had to end it with his other woman or she was leaving with Scorpius. That she had too much self-respect to wallow in a relationship with a cheater.

When the morning came, she said nothing. She pretended she knew nothing. She acted as if she suspected nothing.

Because the thought had come to her upon awakening that he might not choose his family.

The days became weeks and the weeks became months and somehow it had been nearly three years now.

Three years that Draco came home late. Three years that he would break plans and disappear. Three years in which he had taken numerous business trips to check on Luna Lovegood's operation personally, while he sent his executives to check on his other investments.

Three years that Draco showed less and less affection toward his wife and son. Three years that he reached for Astoria less and less frequently. Three years that she began to wonder if he would notice if she shaved her head and had a dark mark tattooed on it. Three years that he became less and less of the man she married.

This evening's edition of the Daily Prophet had featured an article on Luna Lovegood and her much older husband Rolf Scamander. The husband Blaise had snickered about and declared as gay as they came. The husband Blaise claimed didn't even live with his wife.

There was a picture of Luna with her adorable one year old twins.

Her adorable one year old twins who were two perfect little copies of Draco's baby pictures.

She angrily stomped back across the room to throw the newspaper into the fire, and then returned to the window seat, leaning her head against the leaded glass pane.

The rain fell down the glass, and the tears fell down her face. Draco would not be home to see them any time soon.

Even if he did, she would lie about their cause.

She would not confront him about this bit of news any more than she had confronted him about his previous sins.

She knew now that if she ever gave him an ultimatum, he would choose his family.

But it would not be her family.

That knowledge was the reason she held her silence and held on to her forever and always and til death do us part for whatever time she had left with him.


End file.
